The President will remain in Palm City, Florida through Monday, Feb 18. No public events are scheduled

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President Obama greets supporters after arriving at West Palm Beach International Airport, Feb. 15

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Paul Krugman: It looks as if President Obama has successfully set a political trap over the minimum wage. Raising the minimum is very popular — even a narrow majority of Republicans are for it. But Republican leaders are opposed. And they’d like people to believe that their opposition is driven by sincere concern for workers who might lose their jobs.

Well, this isn’t likely to work…..

….. Maybe once upon a time, when Republicans were less intellectually inbred, they could have pulled off the stunt of seeming to care about the people supposedly hurt by a higher minimum wage. But I really don’t think they’re up to it at this point.

EJ Dionne: Conservatives are not accustomed to being on the defensive. They have long experience with attacking the evils of the left and the abuses of activist judges. They love to assail “tax-and-spend liberals” without ever discussing who should be taxed or what government money is actually spent on. They expect their progressive opponents to be wimpy and apologetic.

So imagine the shock when President Obama decided last week to speak plainly about what a Supreme Court decision throwing out the health-care law would mean, and then landed straight shots against the Mitt Romney-supported Paul Ryan budget as “a Trojan horse,” “an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country,” and “thinly veiled social Darwinism.”

….. Romney pronounced himself appalled …. yet could neither defend the cuts nor deny the president’s list of particulars, based as they were on reasonable assumptions. When it came to the Ryan budget, Romney wanted to fuzz things up. But, as Obama likes to point out, math is math.

And when Obama went after the right’s willingness to use the power of the Supreme Court for ideological purposes, conservatives were aghast – and never mind that conservatives have been castigating activist judges since at least the 1968 presidential campaign….

Paul Krugman: Oh, boy. It turns out that the WaPo featured on its front page a report by Charles Blahous of the (yes, Koch-funded) Mercatus Center – although the Post describes him as a Medicare trustee, giving the impression that this is somehow an official document – claiming that the Affordable Care Act will actually increase the deficit. Jonathan Chait does the honors…..

….. this is basically a sick joke that doesn’t pass the laugh test. Unfortunately, it seems that some news organizations don’t have mandatory laugh-testing.

Steve Benen: ….. The problem, which the Post article didn’t mention, is that Blahous’ research falls apart under scrutiny. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Paul N. Van de Water easily dismissed the Republican’s report.

…. I can appreciate the fact that these budget figures can seem complex, but certainly a guy who worked on entitlement policy for Bush/Cheney should understand the basics here, and the basics tell us that Obama’s health care law helps lower the national debt. Whether the right finds this inconvenient or not is irrelevant.

ET can exclusively reveal that George Clooney is hosting a fundraiser for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign – but there’s one thing he won’t do to help the president.

Clooney tells ET, “I’m proud to do whatever I can to support the President… as long as no one asks me to sing.”

… Clooney will host the president and about 150 supporters at the event on May 10 at his home in Los Angeles, California …. tickets will run $40,000 each, with proceeds going to the Obama Victory fund, a joint fundraising committee of Obama for America, the Democratic National Committee and several state Democratic parties.